In 15th-century Italy, the cunning Caterina Sforza ruthlessly defended her family's fortunes at any cost — and was even accused of plotting to assassinate the pope.

In 1778, Frances Slocum was abducted by the Delaware tribe in Pennsylvania. She later married into the Miami tribe — and decided to never return home.

Although Marina Oswald Porter testified against Lee Harvey Oswald after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, she later asserted that her husband was an innocent scapegoat.

The chainsaw was invented to more safely perform a brutal surgery known as a symphysiotomy on laboring women, during which the birth canal was widened with a hand-cranked, rotating blade.

Mildred Harnack moved to Berlin with her German-born husband in 1929 and joined a Nazi resistance group — and was later sentenced to death by Adolf Hitler himself.

A fearsome witch of Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is said to kidnap, roast, and eat children in the woods of Eastern Europe.

In 1969, NASA relied on software engineer Margaret Hamilton to safely land the Apollo 11 astronauts on the lunar surface — and to bring them back home.

Venice's Poveglia Island was a quarantine center and mass grave for victims of bubonic plague, earning it the nickname the "Island of Ghosts."

On September 22, 1975, Sara Jane Moore became the second woman to try to kill Gerald Ford in the span of just 17 days — and she very nearly succeeded.

Lieutenant Ronald Speirs earned a reputation for both bravery and brutality while fighting in Europe with the now-legendary Easy Company during World War II.

Moments before his death on September 11th, Mark Bingham bravely fought back against the terrorists who had hijacked his plane. His heroism later inspired many to reconsider gay stereotypes.